Monday, February 28, 2005

While waiting for funds to transfer around between Neteller and Bodog last night (Bodog does not impress me, by the way), I played a play-money tournament at EmpirePoker (a PartyPoker sister site). I decided that I'd play a little more agressively than usual, which at a play money table will usually backfire, because it's tough to scare people off of fake money. I somehow end up winning the thing. The coolest hand: I'm dealt 44 in middle position, and the flop comes KJ4 with five players in. Mind you, I'm probably the worst slow-play guy in the world, but I decide (god knows why) to try it with my set of 4's. The blinds check to me, I check, the guy to my left checks, and the button bets.

The small blind drops out, the big blind calls. Do I check-raise here? Maybe I should have, but I want to disguise my hand to come back big on the turn. I call.

The guy to my left drops out, the button calls, and the turn comes out a 6. Big blind checks (he's probably got middle pair), I check (with the intent of check raising), and the button bets. Big blind calls, I raise. Button pauses -- he's gotta be thinking "how in the hell did the 6 help him?", then calls. Big blind drops out.

The river comes out with a 2. I bet, button raises, I re-raise, button calls and shows AK. My set of 4's beats his pair of kings. Very nice.

A few days off the blog, now I've got a bit of a backlog. Three things today.

First, I've Tivoed Wednesday's WPT episode, "Poker by the Book", and have watched the first hour of it so far. The six players at the table: Caro, Sklansky, Brunson, Hellmuth, Cloutier, and... um... Sexton. It's very cool to watch. I've read the first four of these guy's books, and I never realized that Caro's almost a big a jerk as Hellmuth is, but (and this should have been no surprise) is even better at playing with your head.

Case in point, Caro and Cloutier are left after the rag flop, and Cloutier's trying to put Caro all in. Caro's got pocket Jacks, and he stares at Cloutier and says, "I can tell you've got a pair, I just don't know how big. Sixes?" Pause. "Sevens?" Pause. "Eights? Nines? Tens?" Pause. Pause. Pause.

The left side of Cloutier's thin-line poker face begins to turn up in a smirk.

"Jacks? Queens?" Pause, pause. "I call," Caro says.

Cloutier turns up his pocket sevens. The turn and river don't help; Caro wins.

Thursday, February 03, 2005

I was reminded today of those goofy signs on the coast of Olympic National Park, warning of the killer beach logs.

Every year people get killed on our ocean beaches by surf-tossed logs. Even on calm days the ocean surf is powerful and can be dangerous, suddenly moving or tossing a piece of driftwood or log. Enjoy our Washington beaches and visit us often, but PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM THOSE LOGS NEAR THE SURF.

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Up to $300, down to $50. Looking over my game logs, it's just a streak of bad luck. It happens. A good time to take a breather, and that's what I'm doing.

Besides -- I've got no net access at home for now. We've just moved back into the house that was destroyed by fire in September 2003, and we're waiting for the final interior wiring to be done. I've got a patch panel, and all the wires, but no units to plug them in to yet.